My Electronic Medical Library – how it all started – Google internet search versus offline EML search with DocFetcher – how to get your private Electronic Medical Library for offline use

Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, FACS - PC Support

Contact: Phone: +41 79 415 08 32. WhatsApp: +41 79 415 08 32. Telegram: +41 79 415 08 32. E-mail: pschmidvascular@gmx.ch; alternative E-mail: psvascsurg@gmail.com:

Library

I did not find any books or scientific journals when I visited the Kundiawa Provincial Hospital in Papua New Guinea in 2017. Therefore, I decided to create an Electronic Medical Library.

Internet

In Papua New Guinea electrical power shutdown does happen. The internet is not always available. To google search is slow. It costs about 150 times more than in Switzerland. No flat rate is available.

Electronic Medical Library

Rather than donating books I created and installed my Electronic Medical Library on 20 stationary notebooks. I configured an additional notebook as server. The EML in Kundiawa was last updated in March, 2020. By now, the content of the Electronic Medical Library has more than doubled. It is to the best of my knowledge the largest portable offline collection of medical information. Currently over 5’700 books, teaching videos, ultrasound videos, current best practice guidelines, presentations, and personal Standard Operating Procedures are on a 2.5” external USB 3.0 drive.

DocFetcher

I use the open source DocFetcher as search engine. The index consists of over 100’000 fully optical character recognized mostly PDF files. For Techies: On the 2nd of January, 2022, it took DocFetcher 9 hours, 10 minutes and 20 seconds to index over 97’000 documents of my current private Electronic Medical Library from scratch with an AMD PC 12-Core Ryzen 9 3900 with 64GB of RAM, allocating 16 GB of RAM to DocFetcher. However, once indexed, DocFetcher runs fine to search the EML with just 512MB, and with 2048MB of RAM it rarely crashes even if one does complex searches. No crashes occur if DocFetcher has 4096MB of RAM allocated, and with 8192MB of RAM DocFetcher manages to create a new index from scratch.

Google internet search versus offline search in my private EML

Search term: “neuroinvasive potential of SARS‐CoV2”:

Google internet search: About 12’700 results < 1 sec

versus

DocFetcher offline search in my private Electronic Medical Library: 5 results  in < 1 sec (if the EML is on the internal SSD, and < 2 sec, if the EML is on an external 4TB 2.5″ USB 3.0 drive).

The 5 search results in my private Electronic Medical Library are:

  • 20200229 Infectious Diseases The neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV2 may be at least partially responsible for the respiratory failure of COVID-19 patients.pdf
  • 20200418 Infectious Diseases How is the COVID-19 Pandemic Affecting You from Medscape General Surgery.pdf
  • 20210529 Infectious Diseases Association Between Bitter Taste Receptor Phenotype and Clinical Outcomes Among Patients With COVID-19.pdf
  • 20210724 Surgery How Does SARS-CoV-2 Infection Affect Survival of Emergency Cardiovascular Patients.pdf
  • 20210130 Anesthesia Multi-Organ Involvement in COVID-19 – Beyond Pulmonary Manifestations.pdf

Summaries and publications

As of the end of 2022, I added besides books, videos, and other content over 60’000 summaries of publications. Each week I add between 200 and 400 new summaries. You can download the newest ones for free from this site, check the Public Electronic Medical Library page.

If you look for medical information, a textbook, or a teaching video: Please send me an E-mail:

pschmidvascular@gmx.ch

I will mail you the PDF file(s) / *.mp4 – files.

How to get your personal copy of my private Electronic Medical Library for offline use

Windows to go (OS2Go) on a 2TB SSD in an external USB 3.0 enclosure (all partitions are 256b AES encrypted for your safety): Details: See

30000000 February 2023 Offer 2TB external SSD to be used internally with OS2Go and EML.pdf

in my download section.

A recommended: Put my 2TB EML SSD inside of your notebook*, and your old internal drive into the external enclosure: You now have your customized Windows 10 or 11 installation with many software programs in your notebook; use the in your OS2Go Windows 10 integrated DocFetcher with its index of over 100’000 files to search in your private EML in the C:\ OS2Go W10 or W11. Use your old internal drive as external drive as external drive for backups.

B for savvy techies: Boot virtually any PC or Mac with at least 4GB of RAM and a free USB 3.0 port with your 2TB EML SSD using OS2Go, enjoy your customized Windows 10 or 11 installation with many software programs, use the in your OS2Go Windows 10 or 11 integrated DocFetcher with its index of over 100’000 files to search in your private EML in the C:\ OS2Go W10 or W11.